Neddie these are wonderful sketches and all the best to you in your studies
Thank you for introducing us to your pictures, but Let's try to keep the thread on topic by posting illustrations from actual children's books

^marvy, those are amazing.! . . I'd love to imagine the 2nd + 7th 'shoe' pictures blown up to insanely massive proportions . . to be able to scrutinize every little detail. I love the personality she gave to each pair.
I think that would keep me mesmerized for a while.

* I stumbled upon this last week . . sounds like the perfect exhibition.
I've always had a soft spot for babar.
[its running at the morgan library & museum in ny until January 4, 2009 if anyone's interested]

drawing babar; early drafts + watercolors.

Quote:

A dignified elephant, dressed in a green suit and wearing a yellow crown, walks upright across the page. This image—both absurd and endearing—has become instantly recognizable to several generations of readers throughout the world. The exhibition Drawing Babar returns visitors to the two essential moments of Babar's creation: when Jean de Brunhoff and, years later, his son Laurent, set down their initial thoughts on paper. Their earliest drafts, shown in juxtaposition with their finished watercolors, allow viewers to track the changes, both subtle and substantive, that both men made as they refined their work, bringing together word and image with elegance and exuberance.

lovely shots these two ^
i was thinking , how the cartoon didn't appeal to me as much
the way the colours are too bright and as if they only use the primaries ..
blue+yellow+red .. these are a lot softer in the watercolour
much nicer feel
& more 'english' even

The series began with This is Paris in 1959 and ended in 1974 with This is Historic England. In between were books on London, Rome, New York, Edinburgh, Munich, Venice, San Francisco, Israel, Cape Canaveral, Ireland, Hong Kong, Greece, Texas, the United Nations, Washington D.C. and Australia.

I bought this one for my brother because he's going there soon:betterworld

oh those pics are nice! I was thinking of becoming a childrens book illustrator when I was younger...it must be a nice thing to do! would still like to write and illustrate a childrens book one day...especially if I see all those lovely pictures